Matching Items (20)
Description
This ethnographic research focuses on the specific creative processes of one dance-maker who worked collaboratively with seven dancers, a sound designer, a costume designer, and a narrative speaker. Together they created an evening-length dance work entitled "The Now Creature." Throughout the creative process, the dance-maker was interested in noticing attachments, finding freedom from these attachments, and being aware of how the work was affected by the choice to detach or remain attached to certain ideas. This interest stemmed from the dance-maker/researcher's interest in Buddhist philosophy and a system of decision-making she had been developing since childhood. The creative process for "The Now Creature" began with experiments in chance procedures as a method of non-attachment. After the first public showing of the piece, the process shifted to include intuition and aesthetic integration. "Embodied nowness," or the awareness of one's physical and mental sensations in the present moment, played an important role in rehearsals and in the overall process of letting go of attachments. All collaborators kept journals and were usually given specific prompts about which to write. The researcher/dance-maker also conducted one-on-one verbal interviews and group discussions with the collaborators. These data informed the development of the work presented on January 31-February 2 at Arizona State University, Findings from this research can be applied to any kind of creative process, or any life situation that includes decision-making.
ContributorsStein, Denise A (Author) / Vissicaro, Pegge (Thesis advisor) / Kaplan, Robert (Committee member) / Fonow, Mary Margaret (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2014
Description
In these three pieces, I expand my thoughts about the functional relationships that sociocultural notions of identity and belonging, and economic development (nation building) of Isleta Pueblo have to citizenship. The journal article, "Sociocultural perspectives on sovereignty, citizenship, identity, and economic development with implications for Isleta Pueblo," builds a framework for understating the current social dynamic of a United States Indigenous community in this present time. In the journal article, I draw from Western philosophers and activist scholars including Indigenous authors, to problematize notions of citizenship and full-participation with its emphasis on rights, and reflections from the filed about my personal upbringing to further the argument about identity. For the book chapter, "Isleta Pueblo Economic Development and Citizenship," I expand on the relationship of Isleta Pueblo citizenship, notions of sovereignty, and economic development. The book chapter will discuss the theory of nation building using some comparative examples taken from other countries in order to broaden the conversation on Indigenous economic development and what it currently does and might entail, especially as related to citizenship. The policy paper brief will provide a summary, findings, history, and recommendations for the identity crisis Tribal Youth are experiencing with regard to a blood quantum policy. The policy paper brief is intended for the tribal leadership of my community to consider.
ContributorsAbeita, Shawn Patrick (Author) / Sumida Huaman, Elizabeth (Thesis advisor) / Brayboy, Bryan McKinley Jones (Thesis advisor) / Fonow, Mary Margaret (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2015
Description
Low-income communities of color in the U.S. today are often vulnerable to displacement, forced relocation away from the places they call home. Displacement takes many forms, including immigration enforcement, mass incarceration, gentrification, and unwanted development. This dissertation juxtaposes two different examples of displacement, emphasizing similarities in lived experiences. Mixed methods including document-based research, map-making, visual ethnography, participant observation, and interviews were used to examine two case studies in Phoenix, Arizona: (1) workplace immigration raids, which overwhelmingly target Latino migrant workers; and (2) the Loop 202 freeway, which would disproportionately impact Akimel O'odham land. Drawing on critical geography, critical ethnic studies, feminist theory, carceral studies, and decolonial theory, this research considers: the social, economic, and political causes of displacement, its impact on the cultural and social meanings of space, the everyday practices that allow people to survive economically and emotionally, and the strategies used to organize against relocation.
Although raids are often represented as momentary spectacles of danger and containment, from a worker's perspective, raids are long trajectories through multiple sites of domination. Raids' racial geographies reinforce urban segregation, while traumatization in carceral space reduces the power of Latino migrants in the workplace. Expressions of care among raided workers and others in jail and detention make carceral spaces more livable, and contribute to movement building and abolitionist sentiments outside detention.
The Loop 202 would result in a loss of native land and sovereignty, including clean air and a mountain sacred to O'odham people. While the proposal originated with corporate desire for a transnational trade corridor, it has been sustained by local industry, the perceived inevitability of development, and colonial narratives about native people and land. O'odham artists, mothers, and elders counter the freeway's colonial logics through stories that emphasize balance, collective care over individual profit, and historical consciousness.
Both raids and the freeway have been contested by local grassroots movements. Through political education, base-building, advocacy, lawsuits, and protest strategies, community organizations have achieved changes in state practice. These movements have also worked to create alternative spaces of safety and home, rooted in interpersonal care and Latino and O'odham culture.
Although raids are often represented as momentary spectacles of danger and containment, from a worker's perspective, raids are long trajectories through multiple sites of domination. Raids' racial geographies reinforce urban segregation, while traumatization in carceral space reduces the power of Latino migrants in the workplace. Expressions of care among raided workers and others in jail and detention make carceral spaces more livable, and contribute to movement building and abolitionist sentiments outside detention.
The Loop 202 would result in a loss of native land and sovereignty, including clean air and a mountain sacred to O'odham people. While the proposal originated with corporate desire for a transnational trade corridor, it has been sustained by local industry, the perceived inevitability of development, and colonial narratives about native people and land. O'odham artists, mothers, and elders counter the freeway's colonial logics through stories that emphasize balance, collective care over individual profit, and historical consciousness.
Both raids and the freeway have been contested by local grassroots movements. Through political education, base-building, advocacy, lawsuits, and protest strategies, community organizations have achieved changes in state practice. These movements have also worked to create alternative spaces of safety and home, rooted in interpersonal care and Latino and O'odham culture.
ContributorsDiddams, Margaret (Author) / Bolin, Bob (Thesis advisor) / Fonow, Mary Margaret (Committee member) / Cheng, Wendy (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2014
Description
Predominant sustainability pedagogy and science largely focus on fixing existingproblems via solutions external to humans (e.g. carbon sequestration, renewable energy).
While external or outer interventions can support a transition to a sustainable future,
internal or inner developments should also be highly valued. For this dissertation, I define
sustainability as the ability of any individual, community or country to meet their needs
and live happily without compromising the ability of other individuals, communities,
countries and future generations to meet their needs and live happily. Framed this way, a
sustainable and happy life should focus on both outer and inner development, the latter
largely unconsidered in sustainability science and scholarship.
I propose that emphasizing spiritual wellbeing and spiritual practices can support
individuals and communities to act with mindfulness, awareness, compassion,
connection, and love, transitioning to a more sustainable existence. This dissertation
consists of three studies: (1) the development of a theoretical framework identifying
spirituality as the missing link between sustainability and happiness, (2) an empirical
pilot study testing the theoretical framework via contemplative practices in a
sustainability classroom, and (3) an autoethnography exploring my inner development
and transformation as a sustainability and spirituality researcher over the past four years.
The theoretical framework found and posits, based on existing literature, that
spirituality indeed may be the missing link between an unsustainable existence and a
sustainably and happy future. Results from the empirical study suggest that a focus on
spirituality leads students to develop inner traits necessary for sustainable behavior and a
deeper understanding of sustainability. My autoethnography demonstrates the spiritual
ii
transformation possible from integrating spiritual well-being and intellect, while striving
to embody sustainability as a spiritual journey. My research supports further studies and a
greater understanding of the importance of spiritual well-being to sustainability and the
incorporation of contemplative practices in sustainability classrooms. Finally, I hope this
dissertation will (1) inspire sustainability scientists, researchers, and students to integrate
spiritual well-being as an important part of their lives and work, and (2) encourage deeper
conversations about the radical inner shift we need to achieve lasting sustainability for all
beings.
While external or outer interventions can support a transition to a sustainable future,
internal or inner developments should also be highly valued. For this dissertation, I define
sustainability as the ability of any individual, community or country to meet their needs
and live happily without compromising the ability of other individuals, communities,
countries and future generations to meet their needs and live happily. Framed this way, a
sustainable and happy life should focus on both outer and inner development, the latter
largely unconsidered in sustainability science and scholarship.
I propose that emphasizing spiritual wellbeing and spiritual practices can support
individuals and communities to act with mindfulness, awareness, compassion,
connection, and love, transitioning to a more sustainable existence. This dissertation
consists of three studies: (1) the development of a theoretical framework identifying
spirituality as the missing link between sustainability and happiness, (2) an empirical
pilot study testing the theoretical framework via contemplative practices in a
sustainability classroom, and (3) an autoethnography exploring my inner development
and transformation as a sustainability and spirituality researcher over the past four years.
The theoretical framework found and posits, based on existing literature, that
spirituality indeed may be the missing link between an unsustainable existence and a
sustainably and happy future. Results from the empirical study suggest that a focus on
spirituality leads students to develop inner traits necessary for sustainable behavior and a
deeper understanding of sustainability. My autoethnography demonstrates the spiritual
ii
transformation possible from integrating spiritual well-being and intellect, while striving
to embody sustainability as a spiritual journey. My research supports further studies and a
greater understanding of the importance of spiritual well-being to sustainability and the
incorporation of contemplative practices in sustainability classrooms. Finally, I hope this
dissertation will (1) inspire sustainability scientists, researchers, and students to integrate
spiritual well-being as an important part of their lives and work, and (2) encourage deeper
conversations about the radical inner shift we need to achieve lasting sustainability for all
beings.
ContributorsBerejnoi Bejarano, Erica Anahi (Author) / Cloutier, Scott (Thesis advisor) / Ulluwishewa, Rohana (Committee member) / Fonow, Mary Margaret (Committee member) / Afinowich, Robin (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2020
Description
In this multi-media dissertation, water is used metaphorically to equate the process of learning with embracing change. Paradigm shifts needed for sustainability require transformative learning where one is open to being shaped by new knowledge and experience. Properties of water – such as molecular bonding and phase changes – uncover lessons for humans’ adaptability. Given that human bodies are comprised mostly of water – what implications exist for human capacity to similarly undergo continuous change? An arts- based research methodology is practiced to produce a four-chapter project. Artistic methods of data collection and communication retain subjective complexity of lived experiences central to learning processes. Each chapter is prepared for a target audience and addresses widening scales of creative learning for sustainability.
Chapter one is a narrative ethnography that focuses on a personal creative process for sustainability learning. Chapter two is a co- authored journal that covers creative learning tools and design principles for sustainable classrooms. Chapter three is an open-access and adaptive, online toolkit that shares creative methods to cultivate curiosity and critical contemplation. Chapter four is an interactive showcase event that explores how water can inform and inspire individual and collective learning for sustainability.
This four-chapter project addresses the power of creative learning for sustainability at the personal, familial, formal classroom, informal online learning community, and public scales. Arts-based methods harness aesthetic power, welcome subjective complexity, and allow multiple meanings to be interpreted from research results. This multi- media project stretches the conventional structure of sustainability dissertations. The bridge between the arts and sciences is strengthened as this project shows synergies between these two ways of knowing. This research invites what can be learned from the wisdom of water – to both change and be changed by circumstances.
Chapter one is a narrative ethnography that focuses on a personal creative process for sustainability learning. Chapter two is a co- authored journal that covers creative learning tools and design principles for sustainable classrooms. Chapter three is an open-access and adaptive, online toolkit that shares creative methods to cultivate curiosity and critical contemplation. Chapter four is an interactive showcase event that explores how water can inform and inspire individual and collective learning for sustainability.
This four-chapter project addresses the power of creative learning for sustainability at the personal, familial, formal classroom, informal online learning community, and public scales. Arts-based methods harness aesthetic power, welcome subjective complexity, and allow multiple meanings to be interpreted from research results. This multi- media project stretches the conventional structure of sustainability dissertations. The bridge between the arts and sciences is strengthened as this project shows synergies between these two ways of knowing. This research invites what can be learned from the wisdom of water – to both change and be changed by circumstances.
ContributorsMovahed, Neda Y (Author) / Manuel-Navarrete, David (Thesis advisor) / Lerman, Liz (Thesis advisor) / Fonow, Mary Margaret (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2020
Description
Over the last half century, global healthcare practices have increasingly relied on technological interventions for the detection, prevention, and treatment of disability and disease. As these technologies become routinized and normalized into medicine, the social and political dimensions require substantial consideration. Such consideration is particularly critical in the context of ableism, in which bodily and cognitive differences such as disabilities are perceived as deviance and demand intervention. Further, neoliberalism, with its overwhelming tendency to privatize and individualize, creates conditions under which social systems abdicate responsibility for social issues such as ableism, shifting accountability onto individuals to prevent or mitigate difference through individualized means.
It is in this context that this dissertation, informed by critical disability studies and feminist science and technology studies, examines the understanding and enactment of disability and responsibility in relation to biomedical technologies. I draw from qualitative empirical data from three distinct case studies, each focused on a different biomedical technology: prenatal genetic screening and diagnosis, deep brain stimulation, and do-it-yourself artificial pancreas systems. Analyzing semi-structured interviews and primary documents through an inductive framework that takes up elements of Grounded Theory and hermeneutic phenomenology, this research demonstrates a series of tensions. As disability becomes increasingly associated with discrete biological characteristics and medical professionals claim a growing authority over disabled bodyminds, users of these technologies are caught in a double bind of personal responsibility and epistemic invalidation. Technologies, however, do not occupy either exclusively oppressive or liberatory roles. Rather, they are used with full acknowledgement of their role in perpetuating medical authority and neoliberal paradigms as well as their individual benefit. Experiential and embodied knowledge, particular when in tension with clinical knowledge, is invalidated as a transgression of expert authority. To reject these invalidations, communities cohering around subaltern knowledges emerge in resistance to the mismatched priorities and expectations of medical authority, creating space for alternative disabled imaginaries.
It is in this context that this dissertation, informed by critical disability studies and feminist science and technology studies, examines the understanding and enactment of disability and responsibility in relation to biomedical technologies. I draw from qualitative empirical data from three distinct case studies, each focused on a different biomedical technology: prenatal genetic screening and diagnosis, deep brain stimulation, and do-it-yourself artificial pancreas systems. Analyzing semi-structured interviews and primary documents through an inductive framework that takes up elements of Grounded Theory and hermeneutic phenomenology, this research demonstrates a series of tensions. As disability becomes increasingly associated with discrete biological characteristics and medical professionals claim a growing authority over disabled bodyminds, users of these technologies are caught in a double bind of personal responsibility and epistemic invalidation. Technologies, however, do not occupy either exclusively oppressive or liberatory roles. Rather, they are used with full acknowledgement of their role in perpetuating medical authority and neoliberal paradigms as well as their individual benefit. Experiential and embodied knowledge, particular when in tension with clinical knowledge, is invalidated as a transgression of expert authority. To reject these invalidations, communities cohering around subaltern knowledges emerge in resistance to the mismatched priorities and expectations of medical authority, creating space for alternative disabled imaginaries.
ContributorsMonteleone, Rebecca (Author) / Fonow, Mary Margaret (Thesis advisor) / Ross, Heather (Committee member) / Frow, Emma (Committee member) / Michael, Katina (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2020
Description
This dissertation examines pro-immigrants' rights activism and advocacy among middle-class White women in and around Phoenix, Arizona, in order to analyze these activists' understandings and enactments of their racialized and gendered citizenship. This project contributes a wealth of qualitative data regarding the operation of race, gender, class, (dis)ability, sexuality, and community in the daily lives and activism of White women pro-immigrants' rights advocates, collected largely through formal and informal interviewing in conjunction with in-depth participant observation. Using a feminist, intersectional analytical lens, and drawing upon critical race studies, Whiteness studies, and citizenship theory, this dissertation ultimately finds that White women face thornily difficult ethical questions about how to wield the rights entailed in their citizenship and their White privilege on behalf of marginalized Latinx non-citizens. This project ultimately argues that the material realities and racial consequences of being a White woman participating in (im)migrants’ rights work in the borderlands means living with the contradiction that one’s specific and intersectionally mediated status as a White woman citizen contributes to and further reifies the gendered system of White supremacy that functions to the direct detriment of the (im)migrants one seeks to assist, while simultaneously endowing one with the advantages and privileges of Whiteness, which together furnish the social capital necessary to challenge that same system of their behalf. The dissertation contends that White women committed to pro-(im)migrants’ rights advocacy and antiracism writ large must reckon with the source of their gendered and racialized citizenship and interrogate to what complicated and unforeseen ends they wield the Master’s tools against the Master’s house. In doing so, the project makes the case that White women's lives, as well as their experiences of citizenship and activism, are inherently and fundamentally intersectional and should be analyzed as such by scholars in Women's and Gender Studies.
ContributorsVandermeade, Samantha Leigh (Author) / Fonow, Mary Margaret (Thesis advisor) / Switzer, Heather (Committee member) / Lee, Charles T (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2020
Description
U.S. non-profit organizations (NPOs) offering Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) programming, particularly those serving minorities and women, are becoming guideposts that assist academic, government and corporate institutions alike to steer their efforts and investments towards achieving their diversity and inclusion goals. Despite multi-year, multi-billion, and multi-resource investments in broadening STEM access and inclusion, the inequitable representation of young women and girls of color actively participating in school and out-of-school STEM programs continues to persist. The primary aim of this study was to validate a feminist theoretical framework grounded on the constructs of intersectionality, collective impact, and accountability systems, to help inform and disrupt persistent trends for women graduating in engineering and computer science through the third sector’s facilitation of STEM programming. A secondary objective was to understand the history and trajectory of the change and emergence of non-profit STEM Girl-Centered Organizations (SGCOs) and their profiles as a comparative measure of their relative status within the third sector ecosystem, how they serve, and who they serve. By leveraging over twenty-five years of practical experience and applying a mixed-methods research methodology, the research findings pointed to 1) an early adoption of intersectionality concepts into program outreach efforts by integrating cross-elements of race/ethnicity, geographies, and socioeconomic markers of identity; 2) emerging interest in, and incorporation of, culturally responsive programming that is better matched to the needs of diverse program beneficiaries; 3) an increase in equitable program access for participants residing in under-resourced communities; 4) a growing appreciation for the value of partnerships as a precursor to more authentic collective impact collaborations; and 5) priority shifts in systems of accountability from funders to primary programs’ beneficiaries.
ContributorsGonzalez, Gabriela A. (Author) / Fonow, Mary Margaret (Thesis advisor) / Switzer, Heather (Committee member) / Vega, Sujey (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2021
Description
Millions of people around the world daily engage in artisanal and small-scale gold mining (ASGM)––a vital part of total global gold production. For Colombia, this mining accounts for most of the precious metal’s output. It has also made Colombia, per capita, the worst mercury-polluted country in the world. Though cleaner, safer, and more effective methods exist, miners yet opt for mercury-use. Any success with interventions in technology, capacitation, or policy has been limited. This dissertation attends to mercury-use in ASGM in Antioquia, Colombia, via two gaps: a descriptive one (i.e., a failure to pay attention to, and to describe, actual practices in ASGM); and, a theoretical one (i.e., explanations as to why some decisions, including but not limited to policy, succeed or fail). In addition to an ecology of practices, embodiment, and situated knowledges, phenomenological interviews with stakeholders illuminate critical lived experience, as well as whether or how it is possible to reduce mercury-use and contamination. Furthermore, a novel application of speculative sound supplements this work. Finally, key findings complement existing scholarship. The presence of gold drives mining, but an increase in mining comes at a cost. Miners know mercury is hazardous, but mining legally, or formally, has proven too onerous. So, mercury-use persists: it is profitable, and the effects on human health can seem delayed. The state is pivotal to change in mercury-use, but its approach has been punitive. Change will invariably require greater attention to the lived experiences of miners.
ContributorsPimentel, Matthew (Author) / Fonow, Mary Margaret (Thesis advisor) / Parmentier, Mary Jane (Thesis advisor) / Coleman, Grisha (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2021
Description
Spotlighting the figure of the exceptional disabled girl as she circulates in the contemporary mediascape, this dissertation traces how this figure shapes the contours of a post-Americans with Disabilities Act structure of feeling. I contend that the figure of the exceptional disabled girl operates as a reparative future girl. As a reparative figure, she is deployed as a sign of the triumph of U.S. benevolence, as well as a stand-in for the continuing fantasy and potential of the promise of the American dream, or the good life. Affectively managing the fraying of the good life through a shoring up of ablenationalism, the figure of the exceptional disabled girl rehabilitates the nation from a place of ignorance to understanding, from a place of nervous anxiety to one of hopeful promise, and from a precarious present to a not-so-bleak-looking future.
Placing feminist cultural studies theories of affect in conversation with feminist disability studies and girlhood studies, this dissertation maps evocations of disabled girlhood. It traces how certain affective states as an intersubjective glue stick to specific disabled girls’ bodies and how these intersubjective attachments generate an emergent affective atmosphere that attempts to repair the fraying fantasy of the good life. Utilizing affect as methodology and object of analysis, this dissertation interrogates ambivalent visual artifacts: ranging from the “real” figure of the disabled girl through YouTubers, Charisse Living with Cerebral Palsy and Rikki Poynter, to a fictional disabled girl in Degrassi: Next Class; spanning from physically disabled beauty pageant contestants to autistic girls learning how to dance; and, finally, looking to a black disabled girl in her life and death, Jerika Bolen. I contend that through their roles as disability educators, shared objects of happiness and optimism, and pedagogues of death, exceptional disabled girls have been deployed as guides on a new roadmap to ideal, affective post-ADA citizenhood.
Placing feminist cultural studies theories of affect in conversation with feminist disability studies and girlhood studies, this dissertation maps evocations of disabled girlhood. It traces how certain affective states as an intersubjective glue stick to specific disabled girls’ bodies and how these intersubjective attachments generate an emergent affective atmosphere that attempts to repair the fraying fantasy of the good life. Utilizing affect as methodology and object of analysis, this dissertation interrogates ambivalent visual artifacts: ranging from the “real” figure of the disabled girl through YouTubers, Charisse Living with Cerebral Palsy and Rikki Poynter, to a fictional disabled girl in Degrassi: Next Class; spanning from physically disabled beauty pageant contestants to autistic girls learning how to dance; and, finally, looking to a black disabled girl in her life and death, Jerika Bolen. I contend that through their roles as disability educators, shared objects of happiness and optimism, and pedagogues of death, exceptional disabled girls have been deployed as guides on a new roadmap to ideal, affective post-ADA citizenhood.
ContributorsTodd, Anastasia (Author) / Switzer, Heather (Thesis advisor) / Fonow, Mary Margaret (Thesis advisor) / Himberg, Julia (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2016